Such a railway vehicle is disclosed by document DE 195 31 284 A1. This known railway vehicle features a vehicle boarding aid for wheelchair users. The vehicle boarding aid is normally stowed away under the railway vehicle, below a passenger entrance area of the railway vehicle. When a wheelchair user wants to board the railway vehicle, the vehicle boarding aid is deployed from under the railway vehicle towards the station platform. More specifically, the whole vehicle boarding aid first slides towards an outer side of the railway vehicle into a first intermediate position. Then, a tread of the vehicle boarding aid is rotated upwardly so that the vehicle boarding aid is in a second intermediate position. Finally, an entry threshold of the tread is rotated upwardly in order to bring the vehicle boarding aid into its final boarding position. The vertical position of the entry threshold may be adjusted to accommodate for height differences between the passenger entrance area and a station platform.
This known vehicle boarding aid has a lot of moving parts. Also, its deployment and retraction is time consuming. Indeed, the vehicle boarding aid can only be operated once the railway vehicle has safely stopped next to a platform. Hence, the deployment and retraction substantially increases the railway vehicle's station staying time. Furthermore, when a malfunction causes the vehicle boarding aid to be jammed in its deployed position, the railway vehicle is blocked at the railway station until a manual operation is done to solve the trouble. Indeed, the jammed vehicle boarding aid protrudes across the railway vehicle's loading gauge so that there is a collision risk if the railway vehicle were to leave the railway station.
On top of that, this known vehicle boarding aid is not adapted for modern low floor trams, such as the applicant's Citadis trams. There is no space under modern low floor trams for accommodating a bulky vehicle boarding aid. Also, modern low floor trams typically operate on lines having tram stations with dedicated station platforms that are designed such that there is a negligible horizontal gap between the tram's passenger entrance areas and the platform. In this context, the only issue is a potential vertical gap between the passenger entrance area and the platform. Thus, there is no need for a complex vehicle boarding aid such as the one disclosed by document DE 195 31 284 A1.